Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder by Lisa Verge Higgins

and, for the most part, really skilled lovers. Thierry just happened
     to be her last.
    “Wow.” Becky shifted in her seat, curving one leg under her in a way only a skinny woman can do. “And here I thought you and
     Bob had grown up together. You know, like in a big green pod or something.”
    “Bob and I didn’t meet until after I came home from Europe.” The thought of Bob gave her an unexpected twinge. “Woodstock
     was way before my time,” Judy said. “But I suppose Amsterdam was like my Burning Man.”
    Monique gave her an incredulous once-over. “You mean that nudity-filled, crazy-men-in-chicken-suits music festival in the
     desert?”
    “I was young.” Judy patted her sleek, chin-length cut, newly trimmed for the vacation. “I had hair down to my knees. My thin,
     flexible, twenty-one-year-old knees.”
    Monique shook her head. “I can’t picture it. I spent too much time watching you march your boys in military formation while
     cleaning up the backyard.”
    “Voice like a drill sergeant,” Becky added. “You could slice carrots with it.”
    “Well,” Judy murmured, “that woman you saw whipping her kids into shape spent six months backpacking solo through Europe.”
    Becky paused, a water bottle halfway to her lips. “I thought you got your packing skills from Cub Scout leader training. Or
     Girl Scout preparedness badges. Or herding five kids on camping trips to the Adirondacks.”
    “When you’re spending three bucks a night at a place like the Flying Pig youth hostel, in a warehouse of bunk beds crawling
     with backpackers, you learn to keep what few valuables you have right next to your skin.”
    Monique said, “Please tell me you have photos of those years.”
    Judy tapped her temple. “It’s all in here.”
    Back then she’d wanted to freeze time. They’d all discussed it—she and the young Austrians and Italians, French and Germans
     who’d became instant friends. How could they preserve this phase of life that held no plans, no responsibilities, and yet
     millions of possibilities? In Amsterdam life just happened. They met a Senegalese man who knew all the best coffee shops in the city and the back door into every techno club. He was
     like a supernatural wizard who opened the doors to the kingdom. They spent hours lolling in the sun on the grass of Vondelpark,
     enjoying one another’s company, learning more in one international conversation than in hours of classes in the university
     at Strasbourg. They listened to music at the Paradisio. They slept together on random roofs. They were a tame wolf pack, roaming
     territory. After a while they stopped trying to speak each other’s languages, and they all spoke their own. Here’s the strange
     thing—they all understood each other.
    “And yet all the places you saw,” Monique murmured, “all the cities you visited while you were backpacking, you chose, after
     twenty-seven years, to come back to Amsterdam.”
    Judy smiled and she felt the young girl within her smile, too, a wistful dreamy little smile that lingered.
    “In Amsterdam,” Judy murmured, “I was happy.”
    *  *  *
    “It’s Broodje haring. ” Judy held out three sandwiches, bought at Stubbe’s Haring kiosk outside Amsterdam Centraal train station. “It’s a national
     delicacy. The Dutch version of a hot dog.”
    “I’m so hungry I’d eat a dead horse.” Becky reached for the sandwich, thumbed the bun open, and paused. “Um…what is it?”
    “It’s better than a dead horse.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “Live a little, Beck. Take a bite.”
    Judy sank her teeth into the soft roll, closing her eyes as she felt the give of the flesh, the pickled taste, the burst of
     the onions. Stubbe’s Haring kiosk was geared toward tourists coming or going from the international train station, so buying
     these sandwiches here was like buying hot pretzels just outside Grand Central Terminal in New York City—they were a bit dry
     and wildly overpriced.